


when the open road is closing in

by escherzo



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Columbus Blue Jackets, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 14:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15439113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: Nat is due in two months and Cam spends all his spare time as of late being bone-deep terrified of anything going wrong in the interim, so in that sense, he's busy. On the other hand, Matt signed with the Avs a week ago while Cam and Nat were in Bermuda, and Cam is going to see him in the offseason and twice or so a year instead of every day, and isn't going to get to see Beau grow up, not really, and so right now he'd go wherever Matt wanted to take him.





	when the open road is closing in

**Author's Note:**

> I am really going to miss Matt, y'all. And also Cam is about to be a dad, and I have a lot of feelings about that.
> 
> "Chris why did you make them take I-80" well folks it was a way to make them stop in my current neck of the woods and also I've done I-80 ohio to denver. 
> 
> Contains no cheating. 
> 
> Suggested playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO37jdCWedA&start_radio=1&list=RDfO37jdCWedA

Matty always calls ahead.

Cam has known Matt Calvert for what feels like a lifetime, and he always calls ahead before he shows up at Cam's front door. But it's five thirty in the morning, the sun only just starting to peek out over the horizon, and he's standing on Cam's front porch with a bag over his shoulder.

“Hey,” he says, grinning. “You got a couple days?” 

Nat is due in two months and Cam spends all his spare time as of late being bone-deep terrified of anything going wrong in the interim, so in that sense, he's busy. On the other hand, Matt signed with the Avs a week ago while Cam and Nat were in Bermuda, and Cam is going to see him in the offseason and twice or so a year instead of every day, and isn't going to get to see Beau grow up, not really, and so right now he'd go wherever Matt wanted to take him. 

“A couple days for what?” he asks, instead, picking the sleeping sand out of the corners of his eyes and trying to not look as exhausted as five thirty in the morning feels. He didn't exactly get to bed early. He only just got back to the States yesterday. 

“I know you and Nat are--” Matt makes a complicated hand gesture that somehow encapsulates “you have no idea how to be a dad yet and are terrified you'll fuck it up and are afraid to leave her alone for five minutes in case she somehow combusts and you need to take a break from that before you just completely lose your shit” and Cam has no idea how Matt is able to convey that much in a gesture—or maybe it's not that specific and he's just projecting his anxieties, he wouldn't rule that out at this point—but in any case, he nods, and lets Matt continue. 

“But anyway. We're trying to minimize the stress of moving because it's going to be a handful, with Beau, and I was wondering if you wanted to drive to Colorado with me to look at the house we're thinking of picking out.”

 _And I want to give you a proper chance at goodbye_ , he doesn't say, and doesn't need to. 

Cam smiles, helpless not to. “I'll go ask Nat.” 

He opens the door to let Matt in, and Matt makes a beeline for his coffee maker. 

“Where's the--”

“Second drawer,” Cam calls, halfway up the stairs already, and when he gets to his bedroom Nat is still asleep, the beginnings of the morning dawn starting to light her hair up golden, sleeping on her side with an arm curled protectively around her belly, and Cam's heart gives a funny lurch. 

“Hey, babe,” he says, soft, nudging at her as he slides back into bed. 

“Mmm?” she asks. 

“Matt's here. He wants to know if I'll go with him for a couple of days to go to his new place in Colorado.” 

Her eyes open a sliver and she smiles. “Sure you'll be okay without me?” 

Well, no. He's going to be stressing the entire time and she knows it, and her smile widens when he doesn't immediately answer. 

“Go,” she continues. “I'll be fine here. Tommy and I could use some peace and quiet.” She pats her belly, and his hands reach out to cover hers on instinct. He gets kicked for his trouble. If he's not having a goalie, he'll eat every hat in Wenny's closet, and that shit is extensive. 

“Are you sure you'll be okay?”

“Positive. If there are any juicy details, I want to hear them when you get back.”

He flushes. You tell your wife when drunk off your ass _once_ that you're not particularly into dudes but you kinda wish your best friend had just Gone For It when you were both younger and she never lets you live it down. Does also give you a free pass, though. 

“Shush,” he says, after a pause, in which she spends a lot of time waggling her eyebrows. “Anyway. Go back to sleep, then. You both need the rest.”

“I need the rest,” she corrects. “He's apparently ready to pitch a shutout.” 

He smiles and scoots down so he's eye-level with her belly. “You're not even big enough to put on skates yet,” he murmurs against her skin. “Calm down now.” 

“Tickles,” she protests, batting at him, but she's smiling, and she pulls him into a kiss before letting him get up to get packed. “Stay safe. Let me know how Denver is.” 

“I will,” he promises. 

*

They hit the road at six thirty. Matt made several cups of coffee for himself and two for Cam while Cam was busy getting packed, plus toast and eggs, and Cam's feeling substantially more ready to exist and face the world by the time he slides into the passenger seat. 

“We're taking 80, by the way,” Matt says as he backs out of the parking lot. 

Cam blinks. He's not an expert in this—though probably more so than Matt, who fakes American okay, mostly, but only pretends to know the nuances of American highways because he likes to look competent—but he was under the impression that 70 went pretty straight from Columbus to Denver. 

“I'm being paranoid about the weather,” Matt concedes, handing Cam a sheaf of papers that are printed out directions, because at heart Matt is eighty years old. “There's a storm hitting most of Kansas tomorrow. So.” 

Cam shrugs, paging through the directions. If Matt wants to take the drive north the rookies do before going west, he's happy to go along. He knows where to stop.

*

Specifically, after a brief nap because it's still really, really fucking early in the morning, he wakes up long enough to get Matt off the highway to stop at the Cheesebarn. 

“O swears by the garlic cheddar,” he insists, and so they pull into the gravel parking lot, past a sign with a mouse in a farmer's outfit. It's just past eight, and the parking lot is mostly empty, largely because, as they discover about two minutes after getting out of the car, the place only opens at nine. 

“Nap again?” he offers, and Matt shrugs, shifting in his seat before reclining it all the way and settling in. They've stayed in worse than this, to be sure, and if there's anything they've picked up over the years, it's the ability to nap anywhere, regardless of the quality of bed.

“I'm not young enough for this,” Matt informs him when his alarm goes off at nine. He looks pretty chipper, commentary aside, and so Cam just smiles and rolls his eyes. 

“Do you want cheese or don't you.” 

“ _Fine_ ,” Matt says.

They get cheese. Five pounds of it. Also two jars of pickles, a jar of apple butter, a tub of maple fudge--”it's not going to be _good_ maple fudge!” “Oh stop being so Canadian, I'm sure it's fine”--a jar of jam, a package of gummy worms, two boxes of crackers, and a bag of pork cracklings. 

(They would need a knife to cut said five pounds of cheese, but as Cam discovers in short order when he puts the bags in the back, Matt has a tent, a Swiss army knife, two fishing poles, and a tackle box stashed back there along with his overnight bag) 

*

80 is sparsely populated this time of day, at least on a weekday. A handful of vacationing families, mostly, and a lot of trucks. Matt goes around those, carefully, and merges out of the way any time they go down even the slightest hill, which as they get further into northwestern Ohio, get less and less common.

“I'm just trying to be polite,” Matt says, and he's quiet for a long moment before adding, “I thought about it, you know.”

“Thought about what?”

“Being a trucker. It seemed like an okay backup plan, if hockey didn't work out.”

He doesn't seem quite the type, somehow, but if Cam squints, imagines him with the tired face of the postseason and a beer belly from enjoying the road without having to play a game while he's on it, he can sort of see it. 

“You used to say you'd do construction,” he says, thinking back. They haven't talked about this in awhile. When they were still doing the call-up/send-down dance, it felt more necessary to have a plan. 

“Yeah, that was a backup plan too. I had a lot of those.”

“The one I never mentioned back then—for awhile I was thinking of training to be an EMT,” Cam offers. Matt knows about the hockey school; Cam's starting to get working on it now, but they've been planning it out for years. 

“Jeez. You'd have a family dinner and no one would need to call the ambulance, the whole crew would already be at the table.” 

Cam laughs. “I was into it first, so, y'know, they were just looking up to their cool older brother and copying him.” He preens a little, and Matt snorts.

“How old were you here?”

“It was an ongoing thing,” Cam says, unable to suppress the grin. “I think I was ten or eleven before it wasn't just me running around making ambulance noises to annoy my mom.” 

And yet, we're both hockey players, even though we both should have been ruled out for being too small, Cam thinks, but doesn't say. The NHL always seemed like a pipe dream, really. A future as realistic as the ones dreamed up from “well if I won the jackpot from this lottery ticket.” 

But despite everything, here they both are. Him with a good contract with Columbus, Matt unsigned by them after so many years, but snapped up by Colorado when they didn't. He's clutch, though. Everyone knows that. Cam tried to impress that on Jarmo. It didn't go much of anywhere—Matt is older, now, and even having paid his dues, on a team that's trying to be as young and fast as possible there just wasn't much place. 

“I'm happy to be where I am,” Matt says, into the silence, like he's some sort of freaky mind-reader, and it's certainly not the first time Cam has suspected that of him. 

“Good. I just--” _wish it was with me_ , Cam thinks and doesn't say. He wants to raise a Cup with Matt. To carry it together, a big middle finger to the universe and the voices in the league who think anyone under six feet isn't shit. They've had to scrap for what they got. Weren't just born with it. It feels like that should be worth something. 

Matt smiles, just a little, and is quiet for a long moment. He knows. 

“Colorado's our retirement community, anyway,” he says, finally, and Cam can't help but laugh at that. It's true. Even before Bednar went there, it was a parade of washed up Jackets getting traded out west or signing there. Not that Matt's washed up. So far as he's concerned, anyway. By the new league standards Cam's getting into that territory himself already though. 

“Stop thinking so loud,” Matt continues, and he starts scanning through radio stations until he finds a country one. It's not hard. They're in the middle of nowhere, Ohio, and the only stations are country, classic rock, Christian stations, or right-wing political commentators, and the only other thing to focus on anywhere is endless miles of flat fields. 

When a song they both know comes on, Matt starts singing along, and Cam can't help but join in. 

They're terrible. Admittedly. But the windows are up and hey, no one but God to judge out here in the wilderness. 

*

“I think this is the most depressing town I've ever seen,” Matt says, glancing to the side, and Cam winces. He's not wrong. They're passing through Toledo, and it feels like there's a haze of depression settled in on everything around them. The sky has gone from a vivid blue to a gray haze. The buildings are held together with spare boards and prayers. He knows, abstractly, about the rust belt, has heard the rookies talk about what Cleveland is like—though they don't live in the run-down areas--but it's one thing to hear and another to see. 

The clouds follow them all the way to Elkhart.

“You want to drive?” Matt asks, holding out the keys. They've stopped for coffee and gas, and Cam blinks at him. Matt never lets anyone else drive his car. He's fiercely protective of it, and always has been. And Cam has to take a moment to breathe and remember that things are different now; the Matt he knew was going to retire with Columbus. This Matt is new. He's still learning him. 

Or maybe it's the same Matt, and this is part of his goodbye. He doesn't know. 

“Thanks,” he says, instead of the hundred other complicated thoughts he hasn't found a way to articulate yet. “Let me know when you want me to take back over.” 

Matt nods and settles in on the passenger side, taking off his shoes and stretching out. 

*

They get stuck in traffic just outside Chicago, which in retrospect Cam should have expected. As soon as he passed the signs for Gary all the drivers went berserk, and all he could do was hold on, going sixty five in a fifty five while everyone around him swerved past at ninety. That there was an accident up the road should have been the least surprising thing in the world. 

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Chicago?” Cam asks, turning to Matt. The traffic is at a dead stop. It's not like he needs to worry about taking his eyes off the road. 

“The team or in general?” Matt asks, and Cam shrugs in a way he hopes conveys “both, mostly.” 

Matt grins. “Did I mention I got an offer from them?”

Cam stares.

“I turned it down!” he continues, still grinning. “But they offered.”

“I'm trying to imagine it and it's not working. You, a city boy.”

Matt shrugs, smiling. “Oh, It would have been terrible. We'd have had to live pretty far out to have some peace and quiet and a house instead of an apartment. Some towns are more—y'know. Family spots than others.”

And there's that knot of anxiety in Cam's stomach again, and from the way Matt's expression changes, he knows it, too. Just the mention of 'family' and he's thinking of Nat again.

“She'll be fine,” he says, after a long pause, and look, okay, Cam _knows_ , she's out of the riskiest part of the whole thing now. It doesn't make it any easier. 

Traffic finally starts moving again and someone behind Cam honks, and so he startles back into awareness and turns away from Matt back to the road. Matt lays a hand on his shoulder. 

“It's terrifying as fuck. I remember. But you can do this.”

“You don't know that,” Cam says, after a pause. 

“You kept Joey alive, didn't you?” Matt asks, and Cam snorts. 

“He was an adult.” Well. Sort of. If one used a generous definition of adult. 

Matt hums contemplatively and turns the radio back on, shuffling around until he finds WBEZ, and they lull themselves into silence, listening to a report on how Mr. Rogers got criticism about his show when it was airing. 

“I'll probably let Tommy watch that one,” Cam says, as the station goes to break. “I liked it as a kid.”

“You've settled on that, huh,” Matt says, and he doesn't mean the show.

“None of my brothers have kids named after our dad yet,” Cam says, shrugging. “Somebody should.”

“What if it's a girl?” Matt asks. “We didn't know, with Beau, the ultrasound techs said he wouldn't be cooperative and roll over.” 

“Tammy?” Cam offers, smiling. “I still don't know what Tammy is short for though.” 

Matt hides his face behind his hands like he's trying not to laugh too obviously, and Cam is about to ask before he blurts, “Tamantha?”

“No one is named _Tamantha_ ,” Cam says. 

Matt is quiet for a moment, fiddling around on his phone, and then he reads out, triumphant, “Tammy is a feminine given name. It can be a short form of the names: Tamatha, Tamantha, Taurus, Tamsin, Thomasina, or Tamar, Tamara or Tabitha.” 

“I don't know which name I hate the most, but I hate all of those,” Cam says. 

“Hi mom, hi dad, this is our baby girl Taurus,” Matt says, pitching his voice up. 

“No one would bull-ieve that,” Cam says, trying to suppress a grin and failing horribly. 

“Get out of my car.”

“You invited me into your car!”

“I changed my mind.” 

“Oh come on.”

After a long moment Matt concedes, “Well. At least you're prepared with the dad jokes.”

That's about the only thing Cam feels prepared about, and he says as much. Matt sighs.

“I get it,” Matt says, quiet. “When Kasey was on his way—yeah.” 

He doesn't say anything else. This is probably a conversation he's going to need to get Matt drunk for. 

*

They finally stop for the night in Moline, just as the sun is starting to disappear fully, Cam's legs aching from holding them stiff as he drives. The convenience store near the hotel he finds, when he ventures back out, has a full shelf of liquor, and he stares. 

“Can I... buy this?” he asks the clerk, feeling stupid, but it's just—all out there. On the shelves. In a gas station. Not in a separate building that advertises as such or anything.

“... yes?” the clerk says, and then she blinks. “Oh! Are you from out of state?”

Oh, here it is, it's only an in-state thing, he thinks, and then she continues, “Yeah, I moved here from Virginia and I'm still getting used to this too. Yeah. If we're still open—and we're open til three—you can buy it.” 

Okay, he has no idea how anyone in Illinois is ever sober. Alright.

“Great,” he says instead, and puts three bottles on the counter. 

“You look kind of familiar,” she says, after a pause, squinting at him. “You on the River Bandits or something?” 

He has no idea what team that is, or even what sport, but he grins and says, “Just traded.” 

She grins and gives him a fist-bump. “Awesome.” 

He makes a note to look that up on the way back as she's ringing him up, and he leaves the store still smiling. 

*

“So the clerk at the gas station thinks I'm on an AA baseball team,” Cam says, once he closes the door of their hotel room behind him. 

Matt's eyebrows go up. “Guess someone's been noticing the arm workouts.”

“ _Double A_ ,” Cam says. “But it's the local team and she thought I looked familiar, so.”

“Don't be crabby,” Matt says, holding the pizza box on his bed towards Cam. “This is basically gas station quality but it's still hot, so.” 

“Happy Joe's,” the box reads, and Cam shrugs and takes it. “I got whiskey and beer, by the way,” he says, handing the bag over, and Matt's eyes light up. 

“You're a saint,” he says.

“Something like that.” Cam takes a big bite of a slice and, yeah, gas station quality isn't an unfair descriptor, but it's food, and he's starving. 

Halfway through the bottle, they end up on the same bed, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the ceiling. Matt is like a furnace, but it's reassuring to have him here, and so Cam doesn't move away.

“It's okay to be scared,” Matt says, into the silence. “I was scared. Fuck, I was so scared. Like—what if Kasey or Beau want to do what we do? I get my face sliced open, I get back out there, but what if it was my kid doing it, you know?” 

“Yeah,” Cam says. “I'm not even to that yet. It's everything before it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Matt says, and he reaches down to grab the bottle and take another swig, nose wrinkling at the taste. “No, seeing childbirth is terrifying, I'm not going to lie to you. And we're not even the ones who have to go through it. I've seen Courtney break bones and by comparison she was just—yeah.” 

“Thanks, that's reassuring,” Cam says, wincing. “I just want her to be okay, and our baby to be okay, and to get to the point where it's... easier, I guess.”

“It never gets that much easier.” Matt hands Cam the bottle, and Cam shrugs and takes a swig himself. Fuck. Even though it's “nice” whiskey, it burns like hell, and he coughs. “I spent Kasey's first year terrified he'd die in his sleep. I would wake up every two hours just to check and make sure he was breathing. But that's being a parent, you know? All of a sudden you're—you're in charge of someone so small and vulnerable and just fucking—totally dependent on you for everything, can't feed themselves, can't even hold their own head up, and everything in your life has to rework itself to fit around that.” 

Cam snorts. “You're not really selling me on this whole thing here, bud.”

“You'll get it when he's born,” Matt says, quiet. “You'll see him for the first time, see Nat holding him, probably, and you won't even know you had the room in your heart for how much you'll love him.” 

“Yeah,” Cam says, just as quiet. 

“You're ready,” Matt says. “You just don't know it yet.”

“I hope so,” Cam says. He's still just—so fucking nervous, all the time. 

“You are,” Matt repeats. “You're gonna be great.” 

“Thanks,” Cam says. There's a lump in his throat, and he swallows against it, and then takes the bottle back from Matt and swallows that instead, and that makes his nerves feel a little less fried. 

“We should sleep,” Matt says, finally. “Long drive tomorrow. And I want to go fishing once we do get to Denver.”

“Of course you do,” Cam says, yawning. 

He drops off to sleep before he hears what Matt says to that, burrowing into the covers. 

*

They've got a twelve hour drive to Denver still, mostly through the void spaces of rural Iowa and Nebraska, and the cup of coffee Matt fills up from the complementary breakfast is enormous. 

“Hangovers are a state of mind,” he says determinedly, as though he's fooling Cam or like, anyone within earshot. Cam's not feeling great himself. The powdered eggs and bagel didn't do a ton to soothe his stomach. 

“Okay, bud,” Cam concedes, willing to let him power through it if that's what he wants to do. They hit the road at seven, meeting a smattering of early rush hour traffic--surrounded by old pickup trucks and rusted sedans, the early morning sun behind them as they head west. 

Cam's breath leaves him as they cross the Mississippi. He's seen it before, of course, off-day sightseeing when they're playing the Blues and the occasional flying over, but driving over it is another experience entirely. It feels like it goes on forever. He loses himself in thoughts of what it must have been like to discover it for the first time. To cross it on makeshift boats, to really understand, on the ground, how big it really is. There's a power to it, a vastness like the ocean. 

“Fuck,” he says, the most eloquent thing he can muster in the moment. 

“Yeah,” Matt says.

They stay quiet for the next hour, well into Iowa City. 

*

There's nothing out here. A handful of cars and an endless blur of cornfields, and the world he and Matt are occupying seems so very, very small. There's nothing good on the radio. There's nothing to look at. And so it's either stew in his own thoughts, or talk. He does one and then the other.

“I'm going to miss you like hell,” he says into the silence. He's not sure how to really have this conversation except to just blunder into it. He's known Matt since he left college. His whole adult life, really. Matt was the one who held his hair back when he puked after a night of drinking away a bad game in Springfield. He's the first one Cam told when he got his new contract. Even before Nat. He's the godfather of Matt's kids. They didn't grow up together, not in the sense of knowing each other as kids, but the real growing up—the growing up you do when you're finally out on your own, the whole world ahead of you—he can't think of any memory that doesn't have Matt in it somewhere. 

“Yeah,” Matt says, sighing. “I know—you can tell yourself 'oh, it's a business' all you want, but it doesn't make it any easier to hear that they don't want you back. I wanted to stay. With all of you. With—with you, though, especially.” 

“Who told you?”

“JD. I think they thought it would be easier to hear it from him.” 

“Was it?” 

Matt laughs a little, but there's no humor in it. “No.”

“Yeah,” Cam says, quiet. “I'm still—you're going to be so sick of me facetiming you, but after he's born—I want you to still be able to see him grow up. Like you would have if you could have stayed.” 

“I could have stayed,” Matt says. “I just would have had to retire to do it. And I thought about that. I really did. I know I'm young for it, but. Boller's calling it quits. He and I talked about it.” 

“Is he talking your ear off too?” Cam asks. Boller is settling into retirement as gracefully as Cam expected, which is to say he calls all the time to talk about how bored he is. He's been trying to convince him to start a radio show with Jody, if only to just get him out of everyone's hair and keep him busy. 

“Oh my god,” Matt says, and his tone is so exasperated that Cam can't help but laugh. 

“I've been telling him he and Jody should do a show. He's got the voice for it.”

“They could make it sound like an old Western. The Enforcers, or something.” 

“I suggested Facepunchers Anonymous, so you're doing better than me.” 

“I mean. I would listen to a show called that,” Matt admits. He's silent for a moment, and then adds, “He told me to retire after this contract is done, though. He's been having trouble going outside when the sun's out. Migraines. You know.” 

Cam does, and doesn't. He's never been much of a fighter. That's always been more Matt's game. 

“I don't have that yet,” Matt continues. “But guys like that, they talk. He's not the only one.” 

“Just—be careful,” Cam says, trying not to let his worry show. “I don't think the Avs need you to be anything but fast.” 

“I don't know what the Avs want me to be,” Matt says, and Cam swallows. Hearing him talk about it like this makes it feel more real than it has before, even though they're on their way to Colorado, to look at a place Matt will be living that isn't a few minutes drive from him. 

“You'll be great,” he says, trying to sound less choked up than he feels. “They're all going to love you.” 

“Like you do,” Matt says, and it's not a question, and all Cam can do is nod. Even if Matt doesn't know how—how far that goes, it's still true. 

Matt smiles and reaches out to take Cam's hand and squeeze it, once, before letting go. “Once this contract is up, I'll be back. You'll get so sick of me.” 

“I won't,” Cam says, too honest, and Matt's eyes widen. He's quiet for a long while. 

“We should stop for gas soon,” he says, eventually. “Can you keep an eye out for signs for it?” 

*

They finally make it to the Nebraska border, for which Cam is unspeakably grateful. He never wants to see another cornfield again. 

Not that Nebraska is much better. It's corn for a little while, and then mostly scrub. They hit the first construction sign, and Matt asks, “How many miles across?” and Cam looks and wishes he hadn't. 

“Four fifty.” 

“Jesus Christ.”

“Well,” Cam allows. “Least the speed limit is 75 here.” 

Because they want you to get the hell through as fast as possible because there's nothing here, he knows and doesn't say. And there really isn't. He drifts back to sleep a couple of times, even though it's only early evening, his brain so tired of seeing prairie it just checks out. Matt seems unfazed. But then, he did grow up in Manitoba. 

He wakes up when Matt rolls both windows down, swearing up a storm. The sun is just starting to set, and here in the flatlands he can see everything, once he's opened his eyes, the reds and golds and pinks in perfect clarity. 

“What's w--” He doesn't get a chance to finish, because he can hear it too, then, a consistent scraping thump, the car jerking slightly to the left like one of the tires is... no longer inflated like it should be. Fuck. Oh, fuck. Are they even near anything, right now?

“We have a flat,” Matt says, grimacing as he pulls off to the side. 

“Yeah, I got that,” Cam says, and he hops out when Matt does, taking a look. There's no visible gash in the tire that's checked out, but before he drifted off to sleep again he did see a sign that said “construction next 15 miles” and god knows what kind of debris was on the road from that. 

He's got no signal here. He shows Matt his phone, and Matt sighs and pulls out his own, showing the same thing. They are officially in the ass-end of nowhere. 

“You have a spare though, right?”

“Got a donut,” Matt says. “We can take that to the next stop, unless it's fifty miles down the road, and it might be, but we're not getting to Colorado on it.” He runs a hand through his hair, tugging a little. 

“Just tell me what you need me to do,” Cam says, popping the trunk and lifting off the cover. Matt has a jack, thank god, they can't exactly call for assistance with no cell service, and he hands it over. Mostly, he just stands there, watching as Matt jacks the car up, takes off the tire, puts on the donut, all smooth and competent like he does this every day at the shop. He sighs and swears a lot the whole time, rubbing at his temples and smearing them with grease, his face decorated with black smudges by the time he's done. But it gets done. It's maybe fifteen minutes before Matt sighs, brings the car back down, and says, “Alright. Good enough. But we'll need to stop for the night at the next exit.” 

There's only one exit within the next fifteen miles, Sutherland, and it'll have to do. It has a motel just off the highway, lit up bright, trying to advertise for trucks to stop. 

“We've got a room on the ground floor with a king,” the guy at the counter says, looking bored. “That's it right now.”

Cam blinks at him. “That's it?”

“The maid's sick today,” the guy says. “So we got a bunch of rooms that aren't cleaned out.” He shrugs.

“We'll take it, it's fine,” Matt says, not looking at Cam, and then continues, “There somewhere in town that fixes cars? We're driving on a donut right now.”

“Yeah,” the guy says. “Couple of places. Check out's at eleven. I think they all open at eight.”

Matt nods, oblivious to Cam, who is trying to be normal—they've shared a bed before. Matt is his best friend. He's still so fucking nervous, for some reason.

“I'll try not to kick too much,” Matt says, smiling at him, and Cam tries to smile back in a way that isn't weird. Matt's brow furrows. He probably didn't do a great job with that. 

He's been a barely-suppressed ball of nerves in general for the last couple of months, but right now all he can think of is Nat, before he left, asking him to tell her about 'juicy details' later. All he can think of is Matt saying, so confidently, that Cam loves him. He's going to be totally normal about this. He is. They've had a long day. Matt doesn't need him being weird to cap it off. 

“I don't kick,” Matt reassures him as they leave the motel office. “Barely even roll over.”

“I know,” Cam says. They were road roomies, for awhile, and he's always had more trouble falling asleep than Matt has. 

“Alright,” Matt says, hesitant. “You want to break into some of the food in the back?” 

They'd ended up stopping off to get a cooler back in Indiana, to keep the cheese from spoiling, and it's a little weird as dinners go, but it'll do in a pinch. Matt is deeply disappointed in the maple fudge, because he's a picky Canadian bastard, but eats an enormous amount of garlic cheddar and pork rinds, and Cam is perfectly happy to take one for the team on the fudge front.

“So, the bed,” Matt says, and Cam pauses, mouth full of fudge, to look where Matt's pointing. It's not at the bed. It's at the ceiling above it.

“Uh,” he says.

The ceiling isn't flat. It's hugely bowed out, right about where the bed on the next floor would be, and Cam makes a face.

“That's... not great,” he says, the understatement of the century, and Matt nods. 

“Help me drag the bed over a bit?” he asks. “If whoever's on the next floor up is going to fall into this room I'd rather they not squash us.” 

They have to move the nightstand and the lamp out of the way and give it a hell of a shove, but they manage to scoot the bed over enough that it's probably not going to be an immediately life-threatening situation, and as soon as that's done Matt sighs, content, and flops into the bed. Cam looks at him and raises an eyebrow. 

He's still wearing his shoes. 

“Fine,” Matt concedes, and hoists himself back up to sitting, grumbling the whole way. He tosses his shoes off into the corner and then, after a pause, shucks his shorts too. Because he is a fucking outdoorsy weirdo, his boxers have fish on them. 

Cam strips off and Matt snorts, looking down.

“Yours have _trout_ , you have zero room to judge me,” Cam says defensively, adjusting his waistband. So his underwear has fluffy puppies on it. They're _cute_ , okay, Nat got him them as a present. 

“I was just thinking we're both really on-brand here,” Matt says. 

“... okay, fair.” 

Matt stretches out to get the light and then they're both just laying there, staring up at the ceiling, the faint sounds of trucks going by on the interstate and the chirp of crickets the only sounds around for miles. There's a long silence. Cam stares at the ceiling, trying not to think too much about the ten different things he's trying to not think about or worry about right now, wondering if Matt has already drifted off to sleep, and then finally Matt says, “You know.”

“Hmm?” 

“I'm going to miss the hell out of you, too.” His voice is quiet. 

“Yeah,” Cam says. He doesn't know what else to say. In all of this, he's never really figured out quite what the right words are. 

“Do you remember—when I scored the goal in double OT in the playoffs and you tackled me.” 

“Never going to forget,” Cam says, smiling at the memory. “I know Boller's talked you into retiring after this contract but I still want to kick ass in the playoffs with you again someday.”

“Do you remember—the other thing about that,” Matt says, and there's a nervous tinge to his voice that Cam hasn't heard in a long while. There's a long pause. Cam does, of course, but. 

“Kiss me, just kiss me,” Cam repeats, an echo of so many years ago, now. 

“Why didn't we?” 

Cam loses his breath entirely for a moment.

“We were in front of fifteen thousand people?” he offers finally. He doesn't have a better reason. In the moment, it felt right, felt perfect, and he can't remember what stopped him. 

The silence is even longer this time. The air conditioning in the room kicks on, a gentle hum of white noise to fill the space, and Matt draws in a deep breath.

“We're not in front of them now,” he says, so quiet. 

“You're married,” Cam reminds him, just as quiet. Nat may have told him that what they have wasn't threatened by Matt, no matter what did—or didn't—happen, but. 

His eyes are adjusted to the dark, now, and so he can see it when Matt props himself up on his elbow to look down at Cam. “So are you, but you didn't say that.”

Cam swallows. He feels too seen, in the moment, and then Matt continues.

No girls,” he says, like he's quoting. “And no guys she doesn't know and trust.” 

“Is it just me?” Cam asks. It wouldn't bother him to know one way or the other. He's just curious. It's easier to focus on wondering about that than thinking about—everything else about where this conversation is going. His heart is beating so fast. 

“You're gonna laugh.”

“C'mon, tell me.”

“Fine,” Matt says, sighing, and he smiles as he says, “Boller, Fligs, and Dubi get a green light too.” 

“ _Dubi_?” Cam blurts. 

“He would probably say 'no homo' ninety percent of the time if he ever got himself to the point of even thinking about it, so it seemed like a bad idea,” Matt says, hand over his mouth like he's trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, I know, I just—she _trusts_ Dubi? Like. I love the guy, but the chance of everything not going down in flames of drama with him is basically zero.” 

“You've never thought about it?” Matt asks, curious. 

“I'm not going to say _never_ , but I know a bad life choice when I see one.” 

“And this is why I never went for it,” Matt says. “With Nat—who is it?” 

Cam's voice, when he finds it, is barely more than a whisper. “It's just you. It's always been just you.” 

“Oh,” Matt breathes.

He closes his eyes and leans in.

“You could have done this seven years ago,” he says, and before he can continue Cam cuts him off, pressing his lips to Matt's, and Matt shudders and opens his mouth, deepening the kiss. They're on a cheap motel bed, still at risk of horrible bodily injury if someone the next floor up falls through, and it doesn't even matter. He sighs against Cam's lips, hands sliding down his back and further, and Cam squirms.

His hips push forward, the two of them shifting until they're flush.

They don't talk much after that.

*

The sun is only just starting to come out fully by the time they get out of bed. They still have to fix the car, Matt reminds Cam, trying to convince him to not just fall right back asleep, after, and Cam makes a grumbling noise of assent before opening his eyes back up. 

They hadn't really planned for the kitten outside the door. It's tiny, barely more than a handful, a long-haired ball of fluff, and it meows piteously at them. A local stray, probably. Cam takes one look at it and falls a little in love. They only have cheese and a few of the pork cracklings to offer—and the kitten isn't very interested in the cheese, but it does seem to be a big fan of the pork. It makes little “mnum num num” sounds as it wolfs them down, taking a moment every so often to lick its lips, and Matt laughs. 

“I can _see_ the hearts in your eyes,” he says, crouching down to pet it. 

“I can't have a kitten and a newborn,” Cam says, trying to not sound as sad as he feels about the whole thing. “It probably doesn't have any of its shots, anyway.” 

“It's probably just the motel cat,” Matt admits after a moment. “Maybe it's the owner's.” If they didn't still need to drive a couple hundred miles, based on the look on his face, he'd probably steal it, though. 

*

They drop the car off at the auto repair shop and get breakfast at the diner nearby, both of them getting enormous stacks of pancakes. Cam still occasionally looks at Matt and blushes, thinking back-- _just give me something to remember,_ , he'd said, and Matt had pulled back, rummaging through his bag for his lube and slicking up his fingers to--

“Earth to Cam,” Matt says, grinning, halfway through stealing a piece of his bacon off his plate. Cam hadn't even noticed. 

“Huh?” he says, eloquent, and Matt's grin widens. 

“Was I that distracting?”

“You might have been,” Cam concedes. 

“Well.” Matt cuts a piece of pancake and stabs it with his fork, holding it out towards Cam. “Thanks for the ego boost.” 

*

They hit the road again at noon, after the impromptu car repair, checkout, and Matt pressing Cam up against the door of their motel room to kiss the hell out of him. Cam is probably going to be blushing for the rest of this trip, if he's being honest with himself.

The further they go, the more it feels real. Matt is leaving. Matt has signed with Colorado, and Cam is only going to see him a handful of times a year during the season. 

The sun is only just starting to set by the time they reach Denver. It's a sprawling city, every sign pointing them in its direction, and Cam flips through the pages of directions to try and find where, exactly, they're going. 

“I called ahead to the realtor,” Matt says, as they drive past the first five exits for Denver. “The place I'm looking at is in Golden. There's a mattress there already, because they didn't want to show the place empty.” 

“We probably shouldn't defile the show mattress,” Cam says, though he's a little sad about it, if he's honest with himself. 

“There's always the shower,” Matt says, eyebrows waggling. “Gotta make sure the water pressure is okay.” 

“Buy it first so I feel less weird about it,” Cam suggests faintly. He and Nat have their condo, which they bought from Dubi, so this is new territory for him, really. 

“Maybe,” Matt allows. 

They get to the house at six, and the realtor is waiting for them. The view is incredible. Cam can admit that much. They're nestled into the valleys of the Rockies, the sky bright and beautiful, the peaks of the mountains picturesquely snow-capped, and he can see how someone would want to stay here for good. 

“You know,” Matt says, as they go from room to room, touring, “apparently there's a whole thing with this area where people get divorced more than usual.” 

“Do not divorce your wife because of me,” Cam says, scowling at him, and Matt is quick to add, “no, no, not that.”

“It's just--” he continues, “it's so beautiful here that people feel like they should be happier, I guess.”

Oh. "Hey,” Cam says, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “You've got Courtney, and your boys, and a team that wants to have you. I know it's a lot right now, but."

“Yeah,” Matt says, quiet. "I know. It's just going to take time." 

*

The show mattress is hard as a rock, and they abandon it in favor of setting up a tent in the backyard about an hour in. Matt grins at Cam the whole time, pounding pegs in, unfolding various intricate parts, unrolling the one sleeping bag he packed and gesturing to it for the both of them. 

“We're barely going to fit,” Cam says, and Matt shrugs, wiggling under the covers and pulling Cam towards him. 

Something to remember me by, Matt doesn't say, as they take a detour to settling into sleep to fuck in the confines of the sleeping bag, Matt inside Cam for the second time in as many days. Cam shudders and cries out and grips hard at the edge of the sleeping bag, overwhelmed, and Matt smiles and leans in to kiss his neck. 

*

The house is beautiful in the morning. In Denver, at least, every day, the morning is bright and sunny, and the afternoon brings rain down from the mountaintops, and here seems like no exception. The house is a bright, cheery yellow, enough rooms for Kasey and Beau to have their own, big windows in every space they walk through. It seems perfect. 

They wake up early enough to drive down to Clear Creek for the early morning fishing, and Cam lets himself lean into Matt, head tucked against his shoulder as he waits for the trout to bite. He's so nice and warm. 

“Hold still, you'll scare the fish,” Matt scolds, and Cam smiles and nuzzles in a little closer. “Alright. Does Nat know you're this much of a monster cuddler?”

“Oh yeah,” Cam says. “I'm way worse with her usually.” 

“Well,” Matt concedes, tugging at his line to see if anything is inclined to bite, “I'm glad she won't let you get too lonely.” 

“It'd be hard to get lonely, Tommy only has a few more months,” Cam says. 

“And you're going to be a great dad,” Matt says, reeling his line back in all of a sudden, a trout taking the bait. It's huge. Healthy-looking, too, which is more than Cam can say for the handful of fish he's gotten from the Olentangy.

“I hope so.”

“You will,” Matt says, stifling a yawn before reaching out to deal with the fish. “He'll love you.”

“Like you do,” Cam says, echoing what Matt said to him, before. 

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Like I do.”


End file.
